Unceded Anishinaabe Algonquin Territories [OTTAWA], 5 November 2026:
In response to the Budget 2026, tabled by the Liberal government in the House of Commons today, Climate Action Network Canada and its members issued the following statements:
Quotes:
Caroline Brouillette, Executive Director, Climate Action Network Canada:
“The result of years of advocacy for consequential investments in renewables and electricity transmission can be found on the cover of the 2026 budget. An electrified economy based on renewables can help lower Canadians’ energy bills, boost our independence and ensure our resilience to external shocks — whether extreme weather or volatile fuel prices. The next step is ensuring that projects get built right, with communities, Indigenous Peoples and civil society taking part of the process from the beginning.
Investments and regulations should go hand in hand. The cover of this year’s budget tells only half of the story. Building a net-zero economy requires action to diversify away from costly infrastructure that risks holding us back. The Carney government continues to prioritize costly fossil fuel projects that risk leaving Canada behind, like subsidizing the Pacific Link Pipeline and creating new incentives that continue to benefit the expansion of oil and gas.”
Kate Higgins, Chief Executive Officer, Cooperation Canada:
“Budget 2026 is largely silent on international assistance, even as our partners worldwide face overlapping challenges of poverty, conflict and climate catastrophe. Canada’s forthcoming foreign policy review must recognize international development cooperation as essential to building a more resilient world and addressing the challenges that defence, diplomacy and trade on their own cannot resolve. We look forward to continuing our work with the government to ensure that international development cooperation and humanitarian action have the resources and capacities needed to support communities on the front lines of these crises and strengthen our international partnerships.”
Bushra Asghar, Executive Director, Organizing for a Youth Climate Corps:
“While the Productivity Mega Deduction and defence spending hand billions to industries that are destroying our future, young Canadians are being left behind, and this budget fails to uphold generational fairness. While we’re glad to see the Youth Climate Corps named in Budget 2026, we know that 1.3 million young people surveyed are ready to join a national program at the scale of the climate and unemployment crises. This meagre pilot for 2,000 young people, with no new money committed falls far short.”
Stephen Thomas, Clean Energy Manager, David Suzuki Foundation:
“For over five years we’ve advocated alongside dozens of allied groups and tens of thousands of people throughout Canada for this level of clean electricity investment. It’s a hard-fought, generational win, and now all people living in Canada can reap the benefits. Investments in affordable, reliable, clean electricity will save households money on their energy bills and secure our economy for the long term. It will create over a million good jobs, it can use Canadian steel and aluminum, and it supports the leadership of Indigenous communities to build renewable projects on their territories. If we want more affordability and a resilient economy, we need to get serious about building clean electricity throughout Canada and reducing reliance on volatile fossil fuels for our energy needs and economic strength.”
Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood, Senior Researcher, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives:
“The federal budget takes one step forward and two steps back, as positive investments in electrification, energy efficiency and clean energy are more than offset by a doubling down on fossil fuel production. The government’s endorsement of a publicly-funded, million-barrel-per-day oil pipeline is merely the clearest example. The oil and gas industry is also, by far, the biggest beneficiary of the new $36 billion Productivity Mega Deduction. And the watering down of the Clean Electricity Regulations means that natural gas power will be a big winner from new spending on the electricity grid. The budget claims that Canada can build its way to a cleaner economy but, without parallel efforts to curtail the fossil fuel industry, net-zero will remain forever out of reach.”
Dean Dettloff, Research and Advocacy Officer, Development and Peace – Caritas Canada:
“Our partners in the countries of the Global South that contribute the least to climate change say that their futures are being foreclosed on by a global system that puts profit ahead of people and the planet. As a Catholic movement for international solidarity, we wish the government had found the ambition in this budget to truly address the climate crisis. We stand ready to work with all those who promote a values-based economy that guarantees the flourishing of all of creation, and we remain hopeful that the Government of Canada might yet choose to become a partner in that work.”
Atiya Jaffar, Canada Country Manager, 350.org:
“People across the country are facing a spiraling cost-of-living and worsening impacts of climate change. We know that these overlapping crises are a product of corporate greed. We pay the price while Big Oil and billionaires profit. Today, instead of taking common sense steps to make life easier for families, workers, and communities, Prime Minister Carney just pledged to hand over more money from our public purse to the same mega-corporations that created these problems in the first place. It’s time for the federal government to tax Big Oil and fund our future instead.”
Sven Biggs, Oil and Gas Director, Stand.earth:
“A third of Canadians are worried about housing and healthcare. The $43.7 billion needed for this money pit pipeline could build 86,000 affordable homes or 21 new hospitals in communities from coast, to coast, to coast. This pipeline won’t improve the cost of living, but it will increase the cost to life.”
Zoe Grams, Executive Director, Climate Caucus:
“Our country cannot be master of her destiny without our communities being masters of theirs. Canada’s strength lies in its communities. Without reliable public transit, a steelworker in Hamilton can’t get to work. Without climate-resilient infrastructure, a farmer can’t protect their crops. Without extreme heat measures, school children can’t learn as much as they should. Without flood protection, weather stalls local economies and increases insurance premiums for homeowners. Municipalities need more tools to adapt to a rapidly changing world—including growing consequences of climate change in our communities. Federal priorities must recognise and respond to this.”
Cathy Orlando, Citizens’ Climate Lobby Canada:
“We applaud Budget 2026’s electrification goals, which are essential to reducing greenhouse gas pollution and protecting households from volatile fossil fuel prices. But with climate impacts, fossil fuel price shocks and geopolitical conflict deepening the affordability crisis, we cannot ignore record levels of wealth inequality. For all Canadians to be “Masters and Mistresses of Their Destiny,” the Budget needed to go further with extreme wealth taxes and excess-profit taxes on fossil fuel companies, directing the proceeds toward climate solutions and economic security for everyday Canadians.”
Dr. Tamara Lorincz, Senior Researcher, Canadian Voice of Women for Peace:
“In Budget 2026, the Carney government has once again invested more in carbon-intensive militarism than tackling the climate crisis. Billions of tax dollars will be wasted for more fossil fuel-powered armoured vehicles, aircraft, and drones and to militarize the Arctic, which recklessly puts the country on a path to war and worsening global warming.”
Naolo Charles, Executive Director, Black Environmental Initiative (BEI):
“We welcome Canada’s investments in nature conservation, electrification, and the Youth Climate Corps. However, the scale of investments in fossil fuels and nuclear energy raises serious concerns about long-term risks to the health and well-being of Canadians, as we do not consider deep geological repositories a sustainable solution to nuclear waste management. The lack of dedicated funding for the recently released National Environmental Justice Strategy sends the wrong message about the importance of environmental justice, especially as investments in fossil fuels and data centres risk exposing more communities to environmental harm. Environmental justice must be taken seriously as a framework for identifying, measuring, and reducing these risks, because there can be no healthy Canadian economy without healthy Canadians.”
Robb Barnes, Climate Program Director, Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment:
“The federal government’s major new investments in clean electricity are very welcome; this is needed to deliver cleaner, healthier, more affordable energy to communities. New funding for wildfire protection, with a focus on First Nations communities, is also welcome. But overall, this budget is disappointing. The government has neglected critical investments that would pay dividends for people’s health, like stronger protections against toxic chemicals and pesticides; tackling methane pollution would protect our climate and the air we breathe; and investing in environmental justice to protect communities that bear the greatest burden of pollution. Even worse, by handing out large sums of public money for oil and gas infrastructure, this budget is contributing to community harm and climate disasters. The people of Canada deserve better than a government that invests in a healthier future with one hand while subsidizing pollution with the other.”
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Canada’s farthest-reaching network of organizations working on climate and energy issues, Climate Action Network – Réseau action climat (CAN-Rac) Canada is a coalition of close to 200 organizations operating from coast to coast to coast. Our membership brings environmental groups together with trade unions, First Nations, social justice, development, health and youth organizations, faith groups and local, grassroots initiatives.
For more information, contact:
Audrey Robillard, Interim Communications Manager
audreyrobillard@climateactionnetwork.ca